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Some Cards thoughts from Michael Bidwill

Cardinals president Michael Bidwill, in Indianapolis for the Super Bowl, sat down for an interview with Bickley and MJ on XTRA 910 today. A few of the highlights, including thoughts on the coaching staff rumors and moves the past few weeks and a possible practice bubble in Tempe:

– On the decision to not let wide receivers coach John McNulty interview for Tampa’s offensive coordinator job because McNulty is already under contract, and whether there is a fear McNulty would be upset: “What we have to do is make the best decisions for the Cardinals, so we can win and continue to develop our team,” Bidwill said. “Sometimes you have to make tough decisions that aren’t exactly what the employee or the coach or the player or whomever might want. That’s part of this business and that’s part of the high compensation these folks get. They trade certain rights.

“Generally speaking, you don’t want to disappoint someone you like and work with, but at the same time, I’d much rather have John McNulty be part of our team because he is a darn good coach. I think Ken (Whisenhunt) feels that way, I think (general manager) Rod Graves feels that way and we need to make those decisions even those are hard decisions.”

– On the Todd Haley opportunity and the choice not to bring Haley back: “I think (offensive coordinator) Mike Miller has done a good job. I think to come in and uproot all that, that would send a wrong message to your staff. I feel like it’s really Ken’s bailiwick. If Ken was comfortable bringing Todd back, I would support him. If Ken is not comfortable bringing Todd back, I support that too. We are all in this making the best decisions we can to win football games, to win the NFC West. We know that road goes through San Francisco. We will make all the best decisions possible.”

– On McNulty’s ability to be able to improve QB play as quarterbacks coach (Bidwill did not say McNulty was going to be QB coach, but certainly talked like he will be, leaving the open coaching staff spot for a new receivers coach): “I sat in an interview with (McNulty) and he is a technician, strong, he’s a leader, a good communicator. I felt after a half-hour, I could start playing quarterback.

“He’s a great football coach and that’s what we need. If we want great quarterback play, we need guys who will be technical, who will be disciplined, and taking care of fundamentals.”

– An attempt to ask about the Cards and Peyton Manning went, understandably, nowhere. Manning is under contract with the Colts, so anything said about him at all by a team could be considered tampering. “You want to pay the fine?” Bidwill asked.

– On quarterback Kevin Kolb: “I still think Kevin, with an offseason, he is going to be a darn good quarterback,” Bidwill said, adding the team needs to develop their two young QBs, including John Skelton.

– On plans to build a practice bubble at the Tempe facility to be able to get out of the heat in the early season: “I would say it will take a little bit of time to go through the process, but as soon as we get through that process — there is a public process to it — construction time should be about a year,” he said. “I don’t see it happening in the 2012 season.”

– On looking forward: “We have to make the decisions to put us back in the driver’s seat of winning the NFC West,” Bidwill said. “That’s what we did in 2008. Get a home playoff game, and take it from there.”

Cards (OK, everyone) headed to primetime

Part of the press conference from commissioner Roger Goodell at the Super Bowl today was the announcement (not unexpected) that the league would be extending the NFL Network’s Thursday night TV package to 13 games from the current seven (NBC will be taking the Thanksgiving night telecast). With the upgrade, in addition to all the Sunday night and Monday night games, every team in the league will get at least one primetime appearance in 2012.

The Cards, of course, didn’t have any primetime games in 2011, which wasn’t a shock given their struggles in 2010 (and no, I don’t know why Jacksonville got two Monday night games and a Thursday night game this past season.) The last time the Cards were on primetime was a Monday night home loss to the 49ers in 2010, a game in which I am sure Derek Anderson remembers well.

The Cards ended up with four primetime games in 2009 coming off their Super Bowl appearance — a Sunday night loss to the Colts, a Sunday night win in New York against the Giants, a Sunday night home win against the Vikings, and a Monday night road loss in San Francisco.

All primetime spots aren’t the same. These days, because of the network exposure, Sunday night has become the glamour slot, following by Monday night (although the league is still watching) and then Thursday. Thursday also isn’t exactly a player favorite because of the short week; what will be interesting to see is if the league makes sure Thursday teams are coming off a bye. That may be logisitically impossible, since the Thursday games will take place from Week 2 to Week 15.

The schedule, including primetime decisions, are announced in April. By then, free agency is finished and the league has a better idea of how teams will have changed. The first week of the season will have a Thursday night game, but it will be hosted by either the Giants or Patriots (whichever team wins) on on NBC.

Given the three Thanksgiving games on the non-NFL Network networks and the opening game, it is possible for every NFL team to have a Thursday game this season. We’ll see how that plays out.

At the Super Bowl, Fitz talks QBs

Every year at the Super Bowl, Larry Fitzgerald has a day where he does a series of interviews on Radio Row and with TV stations. He has endorsement obligations to get in front of all the media types to put out whatever endorsement message he has, and fields a bunch of other football questions. Some years, the questions are a little more interesting that others, and obviously, he dropped into the middle of Peyton Manning week out there in Indy.

Early in the day, Fitz appeared on ESPN radio with “Mike and Mike,” and was asked about the speculation of Manning and Arizona. “Everybody, if you play receiver, would love to play with a quarterback like Peyton Manning,” Fitz said. “Anyone in your right mind would want to play with him.”

But on a couple of interviews, including one with Bickley and MJ on XTRA 910, Fitzgerald was clear about his support for current quarterbacks Kevin Kolb and John Skelton.”We have two really good quarterbacks on the roster right now,” Fitzgerald said. “We showed we can win with both of them. With an offseason, I think Kevin is going to do a lot better. … It will pay dividends for us.”

Asked if the locker room had lost confidence in Kolb, Fitzgerald couldn’t say no quickly enough, even pointing to the times the players hadn’t lost faith in Kurt Warner during his bumpy stretches, especially in 2006. With Kolb, “you can’t lose confidence in someone who has been hurt,” Fitzgerald said. “The guy has a lot of talent.”

Fitz did note on “Mike & Mike” that having Peyton available could make it awkward for any team, which of course would include the Cards, if they pursued Manning. “People are always going to get their feelings hurt,” Fitz acknowledged, “… but you know Peyton is an upgrade to what you already have.”

Tom James of the Terre Haute Tribune-Star, who has covered the Colts for years, reported mid-day that Fitz and Colts quarterback Peyton Manning were expected to have dinner, which obviously caught everyone’s eye. Fitzgerald and Manning are friends — Fitz seems to be friends with pretty much every high-profile player this is — and so it could mean nothing about the future. But it’s hard to believe, with everything happening, the subject wouldn’t come up.

Fitzgerald, on XTRA, tap-danced around the dinner subject. “Man, I don’t even have Peyton’s phone number”

(As I noted on Twitter earlier today, Fitz does the “Who, me?” thing better than anyone else.)

Asked directly if he was going to have dinner, Fitz said “No, no, no.” Might he see Manning at all this week? “If I see him I’m going to give him a hug like I do when I see him, he’s a good dude and he’s a great ambassador for the game, but I still don’t believe Indianapolis is going to let him go.”

(The dinner sure sounds like it will happen. Fitz’s brother Marcus said “where there’s smoke, there’s usually fire” when asked about it, and Mike Jurecki reported confirmation.)

If he was let go, Fitzgerald guessed there would be “at least 15″ teams that would look into signing Manning. “Even teams that I would say are solid at the quarterback position, the New York Jets, someone that they are confident they have someone in the stable that can lead their team but Peyton is an upgrade … there are a ton of teams,” Fitzgerald said.

It was suggested the Cards would be one of those teams. If so, what would Fitzgerald think about that? Fitz paused for a moment. “I’m like everybody else in Arizona. I just want to win.”

It was really the only things he could say. Fitzgerald has to walk a fine line, and in the belly of the media beast Thursday, the questions were unavoidable. One thing Fitz has stayed consistent with was the end result — the winning part of the equation. He doesn’t tap dance around that at all.

“The hourglass has turned over on me,” Fitzgerald said.  “I’m going into my ninth season now. I’m not getting any younger and the window of opportunity is closing. As an athlete, you have a shelf life. Simple as that.”

Manning hype/speculation just getting started

At one point, the website Deadspin.com repeatedly pointed out how much ESPN was covering Tim Tebow. It was overkill, but with a purpose — people paid attention. There’s a chance, a good chance, the coverage of Peyton Manning over the next couple of months will put that to shame.

The Manning media train is just pulling out, beginning with Bob Kravitz’s story last week, gaining speed thanks to yesterday’s ESPN interview and the fact the Super Bowl is in Indianapolis. Certainly, the Cardinals are going to be in the middle of this tsunami of discussion — on the “Mike & Mike” show on ESPN radio this morning, the Cards and Manning were discussed not once, not twice, but three different times by three different guests: Adam Schefter, Cris Carter and Al Michaels.

(A quick aside: Manning hasn’t been released yet. I know everyone has just started to assume he will be — even I have to say it seems to be headed in that direction — but it’s not in concrete. Interesting note by the National Football Post’s guru Andrew Brandt, that the Colts would suffer a $16M cap hit in 2012 if they cut him. If they keep him, his cap number is $17M. A heavy price to pay either way — although if they cut him, they save $28 million in actual dollars.)

This is all going to come down to health, which has been repeated over and over. Just because Manning is throwing right now doesn’t mean much; it’s one thing to throw in January or February with no pass rush to open guys and another to do it in the heat of a game in October. Another thing to pay attention to is how he throws. Just because he can throw doesn’t mean he can throw with necessary velocity, which has apparently been the question as this nerve regenerates. Reading and hearing about the injury, it sounds less that Manning would face a greater risk of debilitating injury if he returns and more like his ability to play at a high level that could be the problem.

Manning said yesterday the doctors told him he was “on point” with his recovery, whatever that might mean right now. I have zero doubt that if Manning can still play physically, he wants to and will play. Add that to the fact that, you know, he was a pretty good quarterback the last time he took the field, and he will have a ton of suitors if he is released even with the questions about his health.

And then the coverage will make it look like Tebow squared. The National Manning League.

Peterson’s plea for five

It didn’t take long for Patrick Peterson’s teammates to realize he was something special as a punt return man. As fellow DB and punt return blocker Richard Marshall noted, “Pat P is the man.” Yet the oft-repeated mantra of Peterson’s, the one in which he just told his teammates to “give me five yards”? Peterson admitted now, it wasn’t so easy to deliver that message.

“Honestly, I was scared to tell those guys at the beginning of the season,” Peterson said. “That’s the same thing I told the guys (in college) at LSU but I was a veteran at LSU. As a rookie, I didn’t want it to come off the wrong way, ‘This guy is too cocky.’ I asked coach Spence (special teams coach Kevin Spencer) if I approached the punt return team, because I feel I can make something special every time I touch the ball.”

So in a meeting the week after the game in Washington — the second game of the season — Peterson made his plea.

“From that day on, I asked the guys and a lot of times they gave me more (room), and we tied the NFL record,” Peterson said. “They took heed in it, and without those guys, I wouldn’t be in this position.”

Peterson knows now, there will be plenty of weeks where kickers don’t even try to kick it his way, eschewing the chance at deep punts to avoid him. That’s what he always expected, and it doesn’t faze him.

“I have to make them pay,” Peterson said. “If they have 10 kicks and they want all 10 away from me, they will miss one of them. And that will be my opportunity.”

Speaking of opportunity, there was one for him to hold the punt-return touchdown record all to himself in the season finale. Peterson looked like he was about to get his fifth of the season, only to have Seahawks punter Jon Ryan barely catch his foot and trip up Peterson. With a smile, Peterson acknowledged the play still haunts him.

“I was actually was stumbling into the cut,” Peterson said. “I wanted to come all the way to my left. I saw a linebacker coming into my blind spot, and I did something unusual. Normally I get back to the sideline and all my blocking was on the sideline. Rashad (Johnson) was coming to pick up the punter and I just saw it too late. It was uncharacteristic. It hurt me to my stomach each and every time I watched it.”

As Super Week commences, quiet at home

With the focus of the NFL world on Indianapolis, there isn’t a whole lot going on here in Tempe. I am guessing the Cards will fill their vacant spot on the coaching staff sooner rather than later, but that doesn’t necessarily mean this week (and for all those who keep asking, I do not expect it to be Todd Haley, even if he isn’t hired elsewhere.) I don’t have names, but I know the Cards have talked to candidates beyond those who have been discussed publicly.

There will be just the one spot to fill.Earlier in the day, the New York Times was saying Cardinals wide receivers coach John McNulty was a possibility to get the Rutgers head coaching spot, but interim boss Kyle Flood was hired. The Cards don’t want to let McNulty get away, after the Bucs were interesting in him.

Speaking of interest, at some point it sounds like Cards director of player personnel Steve Keim will still get his interview for general manager of the Rams, although it hasn’t happened yet. One point of clarification that I was mistaken on earlier — should Keim be the Rams’ choice, he could go immediately (a GM, rules-wise, is like getting asked to be head coach in the front-office world) and not have to wait. But if he wanted to bring anyone from Arizona’s personnel department with him, it would have to come after contracts run out, which is typically after the draft. The Rams have said, however, they aren’t in a big hurry to fill that job because of those restrictions. Since head coach Jeff Fisher would seem to have a heavy say in personnel going forward, the Rams may not need that in place.

The business of football

I remember one time talking to a player about relationships with coaches, and — being a younger guy, only in the league a couple of years — he was disappointed he couldn’t/didn’t have the same kind of relationship with his NFL coaches that he had in college. The trust level wasn’t the same, and that was realized with a lack of playing time and the reality of guys getting cut.

But that’s how it is. That’s pro sports, and that’s the NFL. The problem, of course, is that — regardless of both that reality and the fantasy football world many fans seem to view their teams — the sport is still inhabited by humans with human emotion.

That’s what I think of when watching how the whole Colts-Peyton Manning thing has developed, coming to a kind of head yesterday, a few days after Manning talked about how it was tough to get healthy in Indy because of the vibe of change and then owner Jim Irsay responded and then Manning responded again. They are now trying to say the right things and desperately not have this be another Packers-Favre melodrama, but is that even possible?

Clearly, Manning wants to play again. He probably wants nothing to do with a star-in-the-making replacement like Andrew Luck (I remember talking to Kurt Warner a couple weeks before the Leinart-Young-Cutler draft, when the Cards seemed sure to take a QB if one was there, and he calmly but firmly kept insisting the Cards didn’t need to take a quarterback.) Certainly it didn’t work well with Favre and Aaron Rodgers. Warner and Leinart was better, but then again, Warner is a different kind of guy.

All this reinforces the human element in this game. Feelings get hurt. Guys get angry, feel things are unfair. Winning always lessens the issues, but make no mistake, someone is always disgruntled. Nature of the beast. And the business.

Whether Tampa’s move can affect Cards UPDATE

When the Tampa Bay Buccaneers hired — seemingly out of the blue — Rutgers coach Greg Schiano to be their next head coach, the Cardinals suddenly had a chance to be affected.

Maybe.

Cardinals wide receivers coach John McNulty was Schiano’s offensive coordinator and quarterbacks coach for three seasons at Rutgers (and on his staff for five seasons) before McNulty was hired by coach Ken Whisenhunt in 2009. In a business where friends and former co-workers are the first people coaches turn to when building staffs, some not-so-difficult-dot-connecting would say the McNulty could be someone Schiano would like as an offensive coordinator. McNulty has extensive background in the NFL — he worked for Bill Parcells in Dallas and for Jacksonville before he was at Rutgers — and is a smart guy.

UPDATE: The Cards denied permission, according to Kent Somers.

The Bucs would have to ask permission to talk to/hire McNulty, however. McNulty is under contract, and because the NFL’s view of coaching positions has just two levels — head coach and assistant coach — such a move would not be considered a promotion in the NFL’s eyes. Teams can’t block assistant coaches under contract from interviewing/taking head coaching jobs, but they can prevent lateral moves.

There is no way to know right now if a) the Bucs and Schiano will even ask for permission to talk to McNulty or b) what the Cards would say. (Contrary to one report out of Tampa tonight, I don’t believe anyone has asked for permission yet and no one has reported such in Arizona). Given that McNulty has coached quarterbacks before, there is still a chance he could take the Cards’ vacant QB coach position and the Cards would instead hire a new receivers coach. In an interesting coincidence, McNulty is actually in Hawaii right now for Pro Bowl weekend, a guest of one of his star pupils — wide receiver Larry Fitzgerald.

Improved defense by the numbers

Everyone could see how the Cards’ defense improved the second half of the season, especially since it was the defense that was the backbone of the final 7-2 record down the stretch. But I’ve been asked about actually statistical proof, and there was that too.

Breaking down the defense into their NFL rankings from Weeks 1-8 (when the Cards played seven games and were 1-6) and then from Weeks 9-17 (the aforementioned 7-2 finish) shows a stark contrast:

 
Over the final nine games, 64 percent of the drives by Cards’ opponents (76 of 118) were five plays or less and 59 percent (70) covered 25 yards or less. Of the 12 touchdowns the Cards allowed, four came on drives that began on the Cards’ side of the 50-yard line.

Obviously, the Cardinals need to stay that stout over the course of the season, although their consistency over a more-than-two-month period (the Cards didn’t score more than 23 points in a game in any of those last nine games) was not only remarkable, but crucial for the team’s win-loss mark. Carrying that consistency into 2012 — and, in theory, adding pieces and more layers of the scheme — is what coach Ken Whisenhunt and defensive coordinator Ray Horton are aiming for over the offseason.

Finally, an OB offseason

There was a lot made about not having an offseason for many of the Cardinals last season because of the lockout. Then there is linebacker O’Brien Schofield, who is going into his third season without yet having had an offseason of work. The odd confluence of events — Schofield ripping up his knee in January before the 2010 draft, which cost him that summer, and then the aforementioned work stoppage — sure would seem to have dealt him a blow.

This isn’t about excuses for Schofield. The college defensive end had to watch Sam Acho make the same adjustment without offseason work. But there is reason to think at least one of those offseasons could have made a big difference. Schofield had 4.5 sacks and 29 tackles in a role that still had him playing much fewer snaps than veteran Clark Haggans.

“From a standpoint of seriously working on technique, actually on the field and doing football stuff, that’s where I haven’t had a chance to improve,” Schofield said.

Schofield only got a couple of weeks of practice in 2010 before he was used around midseason, thrust into defensive work late. This past season, Schofield had his bumpy times in training camp. The Cards were busy learning the defense at that point. The time to work on technique and fundamentals is the summer.

“It didn’t dawn on me until the season when we were working scout (team),” Schofield said. “That’s when you want to work on it but at the same time you want to go through it with your coach. Then you know exactly what he wants.”

Schofield wasn’t complaining (I was talking to him about another story and brought up the subject that he had never had an offseason). He’s been getting treatment for a bad left shoulder that he first hurt in the Green Bay preseason game but kept to himself as he tried to find his place on defense. NFL teams will have less time for offseason work this year because of the new rules of the collective bargaining agreement — the conditioning program will start in mid-April instead of late-March and on-the-field work has been reduced from 14 to 10 organized team activities, plus a minicamp — but anything is better than the nothing Schofield has had.

“I am very excited to get better,” Schofield said. “Last year was about the expectations and I’m not sure my expectations were as high as everyone else’s. I feel like the way I am learning the defense … I’m going to come back next year and be ready. Next year is my year to put everything together.”